Carolyn Bradfield

If anyone has seen the classic and Oscar-worthy movie, The Hangover, you can get a perspective of the night’s activity AFTER the show.  Keep reading, I’ll get to that in a minute.   First, the Channel Partners Show.

One of the side benefits of coming to the Channel Partner’s show is having people with interesting services and technology stop by your booth and let you know what they offer.  I’m constantly thinking about what Copper Conferencing’s customers might be interested in.  For example, there is a mobile assistant company that has a system for you to call in, dictate notes into their technology and have an email transcript sent to you.  I may try that out some time.  Another company offers a way to connect to a conference call from any international location through your computer’s speakers.  Worthy of looking into.

There were a number of conferencing companies here with us at the show and it comforts me to know that Copper is still very much ahead of the curve in offering our customers more services, more automation and a better customer experience.  Our Connect To Copper online customer portal is head and shoulders above any automated account management system.  We’re the only company offering nationwide local dial in.   Our strategy of offering market leading web conferencing services, integrated with audio, is exactly what customers are looking for.   I like who Copper is and how we stack up against the competition.

Also worth noting is that our show was right across the hall from the medical marijuana convention.  You should have seen the dreadlocks and the pot leaf imprints on everyone’s clothes.  They looked like rejects from a Woodstock concert.  Medical marijuana was legalized in Colorado with little to no regulation.  Now there are more medical marijuana locations in Colorado than Starbucks.   I’m sure the folks at the Lowes Home Improvement convention had a heart attack looking at these guys.  Home improvement guys are a conservative group after all.

Now for the Oscar-worthy “The Hangover” moments.  We got invited to some cool parties.  One of the fun ones ended up at a Smokey Robinson Motown review which was super-cheesy, but a blast to hear the classic old songs.  Of course, a few of the guests (who shall remain nameless) left early when they discovered that the singers weren’t going to take their clothes off. Look at the picture – why did they care?   I can’t really talk about the rest of the night because my life has been threatened.  I’ll leave it up to your imagination.

Just so all of you will know.  None of us woke up with a tiger or unidentified baby in our room.  We weren’t threatened by Mike Tyson.  Nobody pulled out their tooth on a bet.  Nobody got married without realizing it.  All in all, a successful show and fun experience.  Viva Las Vegas and see you next year.

Carolyn Bradfield is the CEO of Copper Conferencing, a leading provider or audio and web conferencing and wrap-around services to enhance customer experience. To learn more about Copper Conferencing, visit www.copperconferencing.com.

Denver, CO, February 25, 2010 — Copper Conferencing today announced the launch of a new suite of audio and web conferencing services to enhance the company’s collaboration offering and provide better value for Copper customers. These new offerings come as a result of an agreement with Premiere Global Services, Inc., now known as PGi, a leading provider of meeting and collaboration solutions.

“By teaming with PGi we are adding new web and audio conferencing capabilities to our suite of collaboration services,” said Carolyn Bradfield, CEO of Copper Conferencing.  “As a worldwide leader in conferencing, PGi delivers technologies that will enhance our audio conferencing capabilities and expand Copper’s web conferencing services to create an extremely rich experience, at a competitive price for our customers.”

Copper’s new web conferencing offerings include Adobe® Acrobat Connect Pro, Microsoft® Live Meeting and Cisco WebEx®.   Integrated with Copper Conferencing’s On Demand audio conferencing platform, these web technologies provide increased capabilities for webinars and web conferences from simple meetings, to nationwide training or complex corporate events.  Copper Conferencing offers a free trial of each of these services prior to a purchase decision and both per minute and subscription pricing.  To sign up for a free trial, visit www.copperconferencing.com/go/0bf53.

“By offering market-leading web conferencing services from PGi, we can expand Copper’s ability to deliver cost effective virtual sales calls, lead generation webinars, trainings, event management and remote customer service,” Bradfield added. “When businesses actively seek tools to better manage their operations, sales and staff, we can keep them connected and competitive, while at the same time saving them money.

In addition to enhanced audio conferencing capabilities, Copper is also introducing a new ‘Local Dial-In’ service that is available nationwide at a reduced rate.  Customers can now connect to On Demand conference calls using a local or toll-free number, as well a variety of international access from locations across the globe.

Copper Conferencing’s automated audio conferencing service, On Demand now offers expanded capabilities including additional call controls, added security features, plus the ability to subconference. The Connect To Copper™ customer portal features powerful, easy-to-use online account management tools with the ability to manage moderators, pay invoices and view usage reports.  New features include the ability to manage billing codes and listen to and download MP3 files of conferencing recordings.

About Copper Conferencing
Headquartered in Denver, Colorado with a major communications center in Atlanta, Georgia, Copper Conferencing provides audio conferencing and web conferencing services to small and medium-sized businesses. Copper’s Conference Coaches™ provide expert guidance of enhanced conferencing services. From On Demand reservationless audio conference calls, to highly interactive webinars and special teleconference event calls, Copper Conferencing helps businesses save time and money while improving productivity. Copper’s conferencing services are backed by fully managed, carrier-class platforms to power communication for thousands of customers. For more information about Copper Conferencing, www.copperconferencing.com or call a Conference Coach at 866-903-7521.

Adobe Connect Pro, Microsoft Live Meeting and Cisco WebEx are registered trademarks of the respective owners.

Press contact:
Alycia Maier-Turner
Copper Conferencing
303-952-4308
pr@copperconferencing.com

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I thought it would be a good idea to have a little competition within the Atlanta office and to use Fantasy Football to create that competition. So, we began I believe like any other Fantasy Football League except that since we are an audio and web conferencing company, we would do the draft over web conferencing using integrated audio convfrencing  to keep track and make it official. Having the ability to use web and audio conferencing for a Fantasy Football draft would be a distinct advantage for a League that is comprised of people spread farther apart from each other.  And in our case, we made it interesting and it costs less than having everyone traveling to one place to sit at one computer and do draft picks.

We had such a great time having a Fantasy Football League that we did a regular season league and a post season (playoff) league! If you have never tried out Fantasy Football, it is great, and I recommend it for you and your friends to have a great time while watching football.  Also, I recommend trying to do the draft using audio and web conferencing, because it was easy for us and if you have friends that have to travel to do the draft this might be the solution.

One thing I noticed while being in a Fantasy Football League that I am sure most League players can agree with, is that I paid more attention to each game. If you already enjoy football, but haven’t tried Fantasy Football, I can tell you that you will love the game even more. After playing in a League I find myself willing to try to do a baseball or basketball league, but I am sure they would not be as fun as doing a Fantasy Football League. If you know of any other great Fantasy Leagues then I would be grateful if you commented on this blog with the type of league, or just comment to say how your league went. If you would like to compare Leagues or see how we did, click here to see our Regular Season League and click here to see our Post Season League.

Carolyn Bradfield

One of my good friends and a manager at Copper Conferencing said to me the other day, “It’s not always convenient to do the right thing.”  The two of us have a common bond that we would rather not share – family members who have and continue to struggle with the disease of addiction.

She did a very brave thing by leaving one of those family members in jail when he got caught with drugs and asked for her help.  It was the right thing because he just celebrated his 2 years of sobriety.  I had the chance to do the same thing 2 days ago, but made a different decision.  It was more convenient to gather the funds, present them to the county, and not face the consequences of having a child in jail, telling me what a horrible person I am.

I’m really surprised at myself.  First, I owned and ran an adolescent wilderness therapy program focused on substance abuse and addiction for 3 years.  I know better.  Second, in my business and personal life, I don’t do what is convenient if the right thing to do takes more work or more of my time.    I’ve hired people at Copper Conferencing that need development, need a break, or need someone to take a chance on them.  They definitely take more time and certainly more work, but the rewards are always there.  I’m the one you can call who is willing to get her hands dirty when you need help moving, fixing something or help out of a difficult situation.

I’ve embarked on a number of initiatives at Copper that weren’t easy to pull off.  I knew we needed to help our customers gain more control over their information and pushed Copper to develop its on-line customer portal, Connect To Copper™.  We added three new web conferencing services, Adobe® Connect Pro, Microsoft® Live Meeting and Cisco WebEx® to our product mix, despite the fact that we had to learn those services inside and out, find a way to offer free trials and figure out how to train our customers.

I’ve added new audio conferencing suppliers to help our customers find new ways to connect, save money, and gain more control over their conference call.    It certainly would have been more convenient to stay with what is familiar, but it’s my opinion that our customers deserve the latest and the best.

The truth is that doing the right thing is not always convenient.  And it’s not always easy.  You can count on me and on Copper Conferencing to always do the right thing, even if it stretches us, is hard work, and is not easy.  It’s the right thing to give our customers the best conferencing possible.

And for that other thing, I’ve reflected and I’m going to do what is really hard.  As we speak, bond is being revoked and it’s either jail or treatment. It’s hard, not convenient, but it’s the right thing.

Carolyn Bradfield is the CEO of Copper Conferencing, a leading provider or audio and web conferencing and wrap-around services to enhance customer experience. To learn more about Copper Conferencing, visit www.copperconferencing.com.

For many people, I think the very act of saying ‘No’ is difficult in many circumstances.  People avoid saying ‘No’ for lots of reasons.  They don’t want to disappoint.  They don’t want to appear difficult. They don’t have the facts to say yes.  They don’t want to be confrontational.  They would rather say yes than debate the issue.  They lack the courage.

Often saying ‘No’ takes courage — even when you know without a doubt that saying ‘No’ is not only the right answer but the best answer.  Sometimes saying ‘No’ makes you feel rather ill, guilty, or heartless.  But sometimes saying ‘No’ makes you feel relief, elation or accomplished.

I applaud those who have the courage to say ‘No’ when it’s the right answer even though it may make you feel a little queasy.  I applaud those who have the courage to say ‘No’ when they know it’s the right thing to do and when saying it makes you feel good.

Use caution with ‘No’ for once you’ve found you have the courage to use it, the right answer may be ‘Yes.’

Alycia Maier-Turner is the Director of Marketing for Copper Conferencing, a provider of top-quality audio conferencing and industry-leading web conferencing services.

1. Plan ahead. Before a phone or web meeting, do an agenda and stick to it. This will help your meetings be more productive and efficient.
2. Know the phone commands. Keep a reference guide handy during a conference call so that you can easily record the call, mute or unmute your line. Check out Copper’s phone commands here.
3. Use web conferencing! Want to take your meetings to the next level? Web conferencing is a dynamic and collborative way to engage with employees or potenial customers.
4. Be interactive. Start leveraging the interactive tools that audio and web conferencing has to offer.
5. Just do it! New technology can be a little overwhelming, however there is no better way to learn something new than by jumping right in.

For a free 30-day trial of web conferencing, just visit Try Copper Conferencing!

Amanda Kubicek is part of marketing at Copper Conferencing and loves to rock climb in and around our corporate headquarters in Broomfield, CO.

Carolyn Bradfield

I always watch the State of the Union address even though I am a Republican and am a little disappointed in the 2009 results.  Aside from Mr. Obama’s considerable oratory skills, I enjoyed the subtle drama of watching who stands up and sits down, who sits on the aisle as he walks in, the symbolism of purple as the new Washington color and watching the Supreme Court and Joint Chiefs react to statements they disagree with.

In the spirit of national tradition and as the President of Copper Conferencing, here is my State of the Union address.  Despite the faltering economy, 2009 was a good year for Copper.  We invested in our infrastructure and technology creating ways for customers to engage with us on-line and gain control of their account management.  We grew our company by 10%, despite having less people to be on a conference call based on the growing layoffs and unemployment.

We created jobs.  In 2009, a number of college graduates got their first business job with Copper Conferencing.  We trained, mentored and coached them so they could be outstanding business people at Copper and beyond.  We helped our employees buy their first homes by providing interest free loans to help them with the down payment needed for the first time home buyer’s tax credit.  2009 was a good year for us, but it’s nothing compared to our plans for 2010.

I had planned to invest in the business anyway, but Mr. President, if you give me the tax incentives you spoke about, I’ll return the favor by investing more in the business.  I’ll add more jobs, employ contractors, pay for services and increase the tax base.   With or without your tax incentives, here is what to expect in 2010 at Copper Conferencing.

We’re expanding our web conferencing capabilities by partnering with the largest and most utilized web conferencing services in the country – Adobe® Acrobat® Connect, Microsoft® Live Meeting and Cisco WebEx®.   You can try before you buy and have them integrated with Copper’s On Demand audio conferencing.  Copper will add levels of support, service and training to help customers know what to use and how to get the right business results.

We will continue to launch enhancements to Connect To Copper’s customer portal.  The portal will be the key place to get account information, but also information about your conference call.  It emails post-conference summaries and contains usage reports.  We’re adding the capability to download or listen to conference recordings.  You can go to the Portal, add billing codes to a call and make sure the cost is allocated to the right cost center or customer number.

We’re going to transform how you can connect to an On Demand conference call.  Pick any major city in the United States and we will have a local dial in number for participants in that city.  Voice Over IP technology will deliver that call to the conferencing bridge and significantly reduce the cost of conferencing.  Local numbers will never change and can be delivered via the web, iPhone or Blackberry.

We’re upgrading our audio conferencing capabilities so you can have even more control over your conference call.  You can add subconferences, control line or call volume, add call security and even record a personal greeting for your conference call.  You can bring pre-registered participants in to an operator assisted call with a personalized PIN so their name and information is already captured before the call starts.  We’ll have more ways to connect your international participants and reduce the cost of coming into a call from overseas dramatically.

Mr. President, fellow citizens and customers, Copper Conferencing will invest more, create more jobs, save our customers money, increase their productivity and at the same time help with Global Warming. (We might even tackle healthcare if we have time!) The State of the Union is looking bright for Copper Conferencing in 2010!

To learn more about what’s new at Copper and how audio conferencing and web conferencing services can help you improve your business and cut costs, contact a Conference Coach today.

If you’re not a fan of bacon, and really I’m not sure there is such a person, then you might want to skip to another article.  If, however, you understand how scrumptious bacon can be, then by all means, read on.

Frying your bacon to perfection is easy using a pan since you constantly monitor its progress. Oh sure, anyone who has ever cooked bacon in a frying pan or on a grill knows about the splatter factor and sometimes it’s down right messy.  For those who have less time to monitor bacon to perfection or just don’t like the splatter factor of a frying pan may have used the standard bacon tray for a microwave.  This is good too but is harder to get bacon to a perfect point be that floppy or crispy or somewhere in between.

Several years ago my dad began looking for a better way to cook bacon.  His quest was to locate a product that better collected the bacon grease during the

Mak'n Bacon

cooking process.  He eventually purchased a Mak’n Bacon bacon cooker, which worked so well that he bought two more.  My dad loves the Mak’n Bacon because the bacon is hung on posts that allows the grease to drip into a pan as it cooks  He uses it almost daily.

Aside from grease collection, one of the best features of this particular bacon cooker is that it stores fairly flat as compared to some other models that have been tested and rejected.  The Mak’n Bacon cooker is used in any standard microwave and can cook up to a pound of bacon.  I must say that putting a pound of bacon in the microwave, setting the time, and then removing it without having to blot the excess grease off the bacon is a real bonus.

So I was seriously contemplating buying a Mak’n Bacon cooker when a Bacon Genie showed up at my house.  Apparently I needed a bacon cooker more desperately than I realized.

Bacon Genie

Nonetheless, the Bacon Genie bacon cooker is similar to the aforementioned Mak’n Bacon because it is a microwave cooker where the bacon is hung on a post and the grease collects below it.  The Bacon Genie, however, has a pour spout so that offloading the grease is actually very easy.  It’s a nice feature.  Unfortunately, there is no way you can put a pound of bacon on the Bacon Genie — a half pound maybe.

So, which one gets my vote?  Actually, I’d use either one of these products any day.  And any day that I’m working from home is a day that I try to have a big breakfast that just might include bacon.  And as for my friend Phil, well might just have to make sure he’s got a Mak’n Bacon or Bacon Genie.

Alycia Maier-Turner is the Director of Marketing for Copper Conferencing, a leading provider of webinars and conference calling services for small to medium sized businesses.  Alycia loves to try new things as trying someting often leads to great conversation.

How would a company like Copper help in my pursuit to graduate you ask? Well, it is actually a lot simpler than you might think. Basically, my senior year at Georgia State University consisted of many classes that required group work, and some weighed heavily on my grade. The problem that most students face when attending a school like Georgia State University is that a majority of fellow students live far from campus and commute to school regularly. This creates many scheduling problems for groups and teams, especially since most of the students at Georgia State also maintained working a part-time, and sometimes, full-time jobs. The solution for me became Copper Conferencing because their audio and web conferencing solutions gave me a way to solve the scheduling problems for the groups and teams in which I was involved.  I hope with the success I obtained by using conferencing that other students will learn to participate in the same fashion.

Basically, instead of trying to set a meeting place where everyone would have to squeeze in the time it takes to get there, time away from work, and time away from other personal matters, we decided to meet online. Without having to leave home, school or even work, we were able to meet online, with webcams, review our notes and discuss our options. Soon enough, meeting with the web conferencing tools that Copper Conferencing provided became the standard. We were beginning to meet almost three times a week, which we heard was three times more that the other groups. Eventually, meeting through Copper became perfunctory and we were able to hand in our work on time and with no stress concerning the outcome of the grade.

Copper Conferencing helped me accomplish what any business would be able to do in a similar situation. I believe you shouldn’t be stressed about scheduling a meeting place, traveling to a meeting place, or spending excessive amounts of money to arrange a meeting place when you have access to tools and features to meet online at anytime from practically anywhere.

You can try Copper Conferencing’s web and audio conferencing services for free.  Just fill in the Try Copper form.

Sometimes your New Year’s resolutions can be the simplest and easiest and other times they can be the most difficult decisions to make. Nonetheless, resolutions are made for a reason. In many cases they are made to better yourself as an individual or to better your surroundings. Often, the positive goal of a resolution is to simplify. There are so many areas in which to trim excess time expenditures in order to create valuable margin for other areas.

“Making life easy”: How wonderful that saying is!  Isn’t that what we strive for?  Of course, as we are all aware, life is not always that simple. If you can make certain aspects of your life easier, the rest of the daily grind may not seem as bad. One sure fire way to streamline things at work, is to utilize audio and web conferencing. There are so many reasons to use audio and web conferencing. Imagine being able to participate in a company meeting without leaving the comfort of your own home or office. All of this is made possible through conferencing. Through conference calling, there is no need for airline tickets, hotel rooms, dining out or even being away from home. One can  follow along with any presentation, be able to give feedback and  participate in a round table discussion from the location of their choice. If an employee is unable to join a meeting, another awesome advantage for using conferencing, is the ability to listen to and/or view saved conferences online.  And guess what…to top it off, you are saving money! I can almost guarantee that  is a New Year’s resolution for most people.

I work at Copper Conferencing and love that I have access to these great web meeting and phone conferencing tools.  If you want to try these tools for free, just contact Copper Conferencing at 866.903.7521 or fill out the Try Copper form.